DC Official Knocks ObamaCare Fix, Gets Fired

Insurance commissioner William White given his walking papers

(Newser)
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The District of Columbia's insurance commissioner criticized President Obama's latest ObamaCare concession on Thursday and was fired on Friday—without being told why, the Washington Post reports. A top deputy to Mayor Vincent Gray canned the commissioner, William White, saying that the mayor "wants to go in a different direction," White said. But White's statement on ObamaCare was never mentioned. In the statement, White pushed back against Obama's plan to let insurance plans slated to be canceled continue for an extra year.

"The action today undercuts the purpose of the exchanges, including the District’s DC Health Link, by creating exceptions that make it more difficult for them to operate," said White's statement. White added that Obama's concession could create higher premiums and disrupt the insurance market. But White may have released his statement too abruptly, sending it to the mayor's office for approval and posting it online only 15 minutes later, the New York Times reports. Still, White seemed unrepentant: "You can’t have something that big sitting out there without responding to it," he said.

In this Nov. 14, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks about his signature health care law in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington.
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

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